Archive of Our Own ^beta

_{White bristled.} 

_{He did not like this strange place.} 

_{It was small and cramped and there was no way out. No matter what he did, he could not escape it. Even when he shredded open the walls and tore open the floors, he would be sucked into an empty void briefly before finding himself once more emerging from some shadow within the cramped space.} 

_{He never thought he would find himself longing for that Quincy woman’s soul.} 

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_{He was changing. Shrinking. Losing his armor.} 

_{The changes had not been noticeable at first. The simple idea that his claw marks had once reached higher up upon the walls. The notion that the room might be getting somewhat bigger. Slowly, slowly it happened, but he’d paid it little mind until now.} 

_{Clawing at the walls once more in a futile effort to escape this place and take over whatever vessel now held him, his arm fell off. No. Not his arm. The blade-like shell that once encased it, leaving pure white flesh exposed beneath it. A snarl escaped him}

_{This place was most definitely changing him and he had to stop it—}

_{With renewed vigor, White began trying to claw at the wall with his remaining blade. He sliced at it until the blade became stuck in the crumbling plaster. He growled, wrenching his body away to free himself.} 

_{The hollow freed himself. There was only one problem. His other blade remained stuck in the drywall.} 

_{A keening wail of frustration filled the room.} 

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_{He wasn’t alone here.} 

Another being was here, dwelling in the shadows. White had only ever seen flashes of It—dark waving hair, a glint of blue eyes—but he was certain of its existence. It never engaged him on its own—though be if out of fear or otherwise, he could not tell. 

_{It unsettled him.} 

_{Yet whenever he tried to find it, tried to eradicate it, there was no trace of it. He tore apart the room time and time again only to be left with nothing more than a mess of wood and paper and fluff. No blood or corpse to speak of for all his efforts.} 

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_{The changes were happening quicker now. Every day, bits of his armor would fall off and crumble away into nothingness. Soon all that remained were the remanents of his bladed arms, yet he could not even wield them properly. There was no hilt, no handle, no way for him to hold them without slicing open his pale flesh.} 

_{Strange how pure white he was beneath the pitch blackness of his armor… It seemed like that one guy was right about him… What was his name…? He swore he knew it once. The one who created him and his two lackeys… Their faces were clear in his mind but… Their names were gone.} 

_{White could not help but let out a whine. He was sure this place had something to do with the loss and he did not like it. Not one bit.} 

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_{He wasn’t sure how long it had been but only his mask remained, and for that he was glad. His mask was the only comfort he had left.} 

_{White could no longer find the remanents of his bladed arms nor recall the faces of the one who created him and his lackeys. He could not roar or screech or keen properly anymore. He still could not hunt down the other being that hid within this place with him.} 

_{The idea of losing his mask as well terrified the hollow.} 

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_{The door worked now. This place expanded somehow.} 

_{In one of his attempts to escape this place, he found that the door was no longer sealed.} 

_{He was cautious about exploring this strange expansion. He didn’t trust anything. If there was another presence with him in the singular room he’d been trapped in for so long, what was to say there weren’t others in these new areas now.} 

_{Searching across the entire expansion, he found only more empty space. No other beings or even flashes of the one he knew was there. No means of accessing the vessel or seizing control. Nothing of even the slightest interest to him. The hollow could only snarl.} 

_{It wasn’t supposed to be this way.}

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_{When he wasn’t searching for some way out of this place, he found himself curling up on the soft things that stood in some of the rooms to sleep. It was far more appealing than sleeping on the rough itchy material that made up some parts of the floor or the cold smooth surface that made up the rest. The soft places had thick smooth cloths that felt nice against his newly un-armored skin and movable fluffs he could curl around.} 

_{Though he may hate it here, he could at least appreciate this.} 

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_{Something was happening.} 

_{Something was wrong.}

_{White could not tell what it was or even name how he knew it, but there was something deep in the center of his being screaming at him. Something was wrong.} 

_{He stayed in this place for far too long and now he was going to pay the price for it.} 

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_{It started with an itch. A tingle. A minor discomfort in the strangest of places: the inside of his mask. He scratched at it from the outside to no avail. He gritted his teeth. Now that he was paying attention to the itch, it was becoming quickly unbearable.} 

_{He wriggled his now humanoid fingers at the edges of his mask as if he could somehow manage to slide them beneath it to cure the itch. He wasn’t really thinking about it, he just needed to do something.} 

_{Then it happened.}

_{The mask shifted.} 

_{All his irritation and discomfort vanished on the spot, replaced now by a deep unerring sense of dread.} 

_{His mask was going to come off too.}

_{The hollow suddenly felt unsteady. He let out a whine. The acrid taste of fear stung at the back of his mouth. He didn’t want to lose his mask.} 

_{In the end, White could only curl up upon one of the soft things, and bury himself under the cloths, face pressed against the surface as if that could somehow prevent the loss. He didn’t know what would happen once he lost his mask, but he knew it would not be good.} 

_{Eventually, White’s consciousness faded into slumber. The mask dissolved, and with it went any sense of who he once was.} 

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_{Wide golden eyes blinked open, peering at his surroundings curiously.} 

_{He did not know who he was, nor did he know where he was exactly. Strangely enough, neither of those things concerned him. Although he could not say why he knew his name would come on its own. Eventually.} 

_{As for where he was… He could not say. Yet… though he didn’t know where he was, he knew this place was the place he was meant to be.} 

_{This place was his home.}